Technology embraced but old-style report cards continue

In the third part of Breakfast's series on Keith Area School, Principal Steve Bennett explains their new technology approach to communicating with parents and how printed material still reigns supreme at report time.

Keith Area School is adopting new technology to communicate with parents but printed material is still preferred when it comes to certain things.

Principal Steve Bennett says the school is about to commission a system that will SMS all parents simultaneously in the event of an emergency.

The same system will be used to notify parents of affected children if buses are running late after an excursion.

It will also be used to SMS parents when students don't turn up for school.

Mr Benett says parents have made it clear they would prefer to continue to receive printed newsletters and report cards rather than emailed versions.

In Part Three of Breakfast's series focusing on Keith Area School, Principal Steve Bennett explained how the new SMS system would work and the school's approach to technology at report time.

"We attended a conference, early April, in Mount Gambier and it was dealing with how schools deal with major catastrophes or major incidences in the community, where parents need to be communicated with very quickly," he said.

"Our school didn't have a means of communicating quickly to all of our parents."

Mr Bennett said Bordertown High School initiated a program this year, working with a company to provide messaging services to all mobile phones in the school community.

"We've actually taken on board something that they've been trialling and they've found works really well."

Mr Bennett said the school now had the capacity to issue an SMS to every school parent instantaneously to alert them to emergencies, school transport delays and student absence.

"We don't have a huge issue with truancy...the system was not set up to define truancy; it was really set up to communicate to parents when kids are absent, so that they could respond as to why they're absent."

"That's probably one of the frustrations for staff that often kids are away, parents know they're away, at times we find it difficult to get confirmation from parents - that process takes time.

"We are obligated by the department to record why students are away so we require that information from parents. Sometimes, with some families, that takes a lot of time."

Of a morning, teachers will take the roll and send it to the main admin person who handles absenteeism, to register the details into the computer. At 10.15am, the computer will send out a message to parents - including in the instance a student is late.

Mr Bennett said the system has not started yet and will take between four and six weeks to set up.

"We're hoping that near the middle of August, we'll be ready to go online."

In an era driven by electronic communications, is there a still a place for old fashioned report cards at Keith Area School?

"We're using a system that enables teachers to write reports from home, using online. The system is linked to the school, via the internet. At the end of that all the information is collate by the computer, a report is generated.

"A hard copy is printed out and it gets sent home - paper! It's got colour too, it's quite descriptive."

Mr Bennett said last term was the first term the new reporting system was used and parents had responded positively so far.

He also said there was some situations where families had poor access to the internet, computers and emails, a further reason why the school continues to print hard copies of reports.

"The feeling in our community is that they still like the newsletter in hard copy, to be able to thumb through the pages, look at the pictures, that's something that people value."

Hear the full interview with Keith Area School Principal Steve Bennett by locating the audio to the right.